Nearly two months after it suspended operations of passenger trains over the coronavirus crisis, the Railways will resume the services with 15 pairs of trains on select routes from Tuesday.
Thenational transporter issued specific guidelines to passengers travelling onthese trains which included asking them to carry their own food, linen, besidesmaking it mandatory to wear masks.
Initially,the Railways announced booking of tickets on the IRCTC website on Monday from 4pm, but the website did not respond due to huge traffic of prospectivepassengers.
Theservices of the portal resumed around 6 pm.
Thoughthe Railways had suspended passenger services, it operated over 400 trains fromMay 1 to May 11 to ferry lakhs of migrant workers following requests fromseveral governments.
A topofficial clarified that the trains ferrying migrants were operated followingspecific requests by state governments and it was not part of Railways’ normalpassenger service.
Whilewearing masks has been made mandatory, passengers will also have to downloadthe ArogyaSetu app on their phone. They will be compulsorily screened at thestation and are being encouraged to carry their own blankets, water and food.
Thezones will be guided by standard social distancing guidelines on stations andtrains and observe the safety, security and hygiene protocols.
Fornow, the Railways has issued time table for trains between May 12 and May 20. Theywill run as daily, weekly or bi-weekly trains, as per the time table issued bythe Railways. There are no trains on May 16 and May 19.
Thesetrains will run between New Delhi and all major cities across the country:Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar,Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central,Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
On May12, three trains will begin from New Delhi terminating at Dibrugarh, Bengaluruand Bilaspur. One each will begin from Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna),Bengaluru, Mumbai Central and Ahemedabad, all terminating at Delhi.
On May13, nine trains will be operated — eight of them starting from New Delhi andterminating at Howrah, Rajendra Nagar (Patna), Jammu Tawi, Thiruvananthapuram,Chennai, Ranchi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The ninth is a special train fromBhubaneswar to New Delhi.
Therailways will run five trains on May 14 from Dibrugarh, Jammu Tawi, Bilaspurand Ranchi to the national capital and one from New Delhi to Bhubaneswar.
Threetrains are scheduled on May 15, two of them from Thiruvananthapuram and ChennaiCentral and one from New Delhi to Madgaon.
On May17, when the current lockdown is slated to end, a train is scheduled fromMadgaon to New Delhi and one from NewDelhi to Secunderabad.
Thesole run from May 18 is a train from Agartala to New Delhi while two trains arescheduled on May 20 — New Delhi to Agartala and Secunderabad to NewDelhi.
Thesespecial trains will have only AC classesi.E. First, second and third AC and thefares will be equivalent to Rajdhani trains.
TheRailways has decided to begin select services so that at least the workingclass can be transported to their destinations.
Passengerscan book ticket in these trains up to seven days in advance. No RAC and waitlist ticket is allowed. Also, on board booking by ticket checking staff willnot be permitted.
Onarrival at their destination, the passengers will have to adhere to the healthprotocols prescribed by the destination state, the Railways said.
Pre-packedsnacks and biscuits will be available with the onboard catering staff, theywill be sold to passengers who need them, just like the airlines do.
Onlinecancellation shall be permitted up to 24 hours before scheduled departure oftrain with a cancellation charge of 50 per cent of fare.